Comments on Next Big Future: Micro and small nuclear reactors

Suicide terrorists don't appear to care much about...

2008-03-26T04:14:41.638-07:00

Suicide terrorists don't appear to care much about surviving the attack. Getting a ratiation suit is not a big deal, nor are the power tools to open the reactor.

I think security issues are manageable, but not at reasonable financial cost, especially not when you build millions of the things all over the world - that's what we have to do to nake a big impact on global energy. Why bother with it anyway if it can't supply a significant fraction of world energy needs?

Here's a newsflash for you: ATM's get robbed a lot, often not succesful but because there are so many of them around the world, the absolute number of succesful thefts is actually quite high.

A few thousand bucks stolen is a manageable and acceptable risk. Diversion of dirty bomb material isn't.

This is not a fear mongering attempt. Rather, I advise not getting ourselves into actions that become inevitably and utterly unmanageable with scale-up. Especially because centralised nukes work just fine. They don't have to be GW size, a few tens of MW might be suitable and have acceptable security overhead.

Also, material use of micro nukes would be high compared to similar capacity centralised nukes, so it's not a good idea from a resource viewpoint either.

In terms of incremental risk from small reactors, ...

2008-03-25T10:34:50.358-07:00

In terms of incremental risk from small reactors, is it easier to get the nuclear material for a dirty bomb from these new reactors or from some other existing source ? Medical supplies, digging up radioactive material etc...

If it is a lot harder to get and use the material from any new small reactors then there is no incremental risk.

There are a million ATMs for providing money but they are rarely robbed. Because it is easier to mug someone or perform non-violent identity theft or some other scam to get the money.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/28764.php

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/4-suspects-arrested-after-stealing-atm-with-forklift/351695620

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15132748/

ATMs have GPS tracking etc...

Smaller nuclear reactors can be made more secure than ATMs and as secure as bank vaults.
GPS tracking and other monitoring and security devices and cameras.

Plus initial siting can be on already secured grounds of existing reactors as when uprating has reached limits. I am not suggesting that small reactors get placed in malls, but in more secure locations. There are plenty of places that are already more secure.

Then the people who crack a small reactor have to do something with the material. Some nuclear material is "self-sealing" in that someone has to protect themselves from being killed as they open up the reactor.

I think anonymous does have a good point here. Hun...

2008-03-25T10:16:28.558-07:00

I think anonymous does have a good point here. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of tiny reactors are impossible to control in terms of material diversion for dirty bombs - at least not at an affordable cost. A group with reasonable resources would not have much difficulty with succesful malignant action. Just pick one out of all the hundreds of thousands or even millions that is least well protected.

Centralized big nuclear power is great. This idea just isn't.

I believe the hoax part is that Toshiba was going ...

2008-01-10T11:22:58.491-08:00

I believe the hoax part is that Toshiba was going to actually manufacture the rapid-L, which I did say seemed doubtful. The Rapid-L research was real.

Actually, sorry to spoil your fun, but the Micro N...

2008-01-10T07:46:09.487-08:00

Actually, sorry to spoil your fun, but the Micro Nuclear Reactor was just a hoax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_Micro_Nuclear_Reactor
read the bottom.

It would have been cool, but sadly it's fake.

nothing that cannot be solved with a solid moderat...

2008-01-10T07:43:45.532-08:00

nothing that cannot be solved with a solid moderator emergency backup, or other safety systems that would be required by most sensible governments. multiple redundant systems are as standard installed in all nuclear plants, and with those all failing there should be a bed of Borides, or other moderator granules (powder/dust, hell, even porous bricks of the stuff) to prevent the meltdown from contaminating the watertable and entering the enviroment... andeven more safety's preventing gaseous waste from entering the atmosphere.

i'm guessing your from an anti-nuclear group Anonymous, otherwise you would have looked these up prior to posting a flawed arguement.

I know it's not possible to make a chain-reaction ...

2008-01-08T14:00:03.003-08:00

I know it's not possible to make a chain-reaction nuclear bomb out of reactor material, but it should be possible to get a meltdown of the reactor core. Is it so that you just need to leak the Lithium-6 for that?

So basically a nuclear reactor uses totally differ...

2008-01-04T04:39:38.441-08:00

So basically a nuclear reactor uses totally different principles then a nuclear bomb.

I guess maybe if it was that easy to make a nuclear bomb, we would have something like in "the sum of all fears" where they had a nuclear bomb in a vending machine.

But still, to say these things are fail safe is in fact a big lie, because nothing is ever fail safe.

Put it this way, anonymous; can the local park be ...

2008-01-02T15:24:30.710-08:00

Put it this way, anonymous; can the local park be turned into a nuclear bomb? All the elements are there, so what's to stop someone from extracting all those lovely raw materials, processing them, fabricating precision machined components and detonating the resulting bomb? The process is no easier starting with a micro reactor.

However, I expect you are being elastic, to put it politely, with your definition of nuclear bomb. Studies of potential radioactive dispersal ("dirty") conventional bombs show that they are much less effective in hurting people than (say) biological/chemical weapons of a similar degree of difficulty. However the weapon of the terrorist is fear, whether rational or not. It's therefore your duty as an interested party to make sure that you do not spread irrational fear about the spread of radioactive material; after all many thousands of radioactive people go safely home from hospital every day.

sorry for the typo's

2007-12-29T03:20:27.361-08:00

sorry for the typo's

So micro nuclear reacots can't turn into a nuclear...

2007-12-29T03:19:49.947-08:00

So micro nuclear reacots can't turn into a nuclear bomb, no matter how well someome modifies them? I know it can be fail safe, as they said it was, since it is impossible for anything to be fail safe. What ever can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy's law.

So if this thing is safe, If you were to open it some how while it was running, there would be no radiation at all, right? Doesnt deal with atoms and such?

> So does it only matter if the deaths are from a ...

2007-12-24T11:09:17.559-08:00

> So does it only matter if the deaths are from a more focused source ? A constant stream of increased cancer and heart disease deaths and coal mining deaths that result in the same death toll does not matter ?

Apparently. That really does tell you that human beings aren't rational, doesn't it?

the city populations that I quoted for the incorpo...

2007-12-24T10:28:22.101-08:00

the city populations that I quoted for the incorporated cities and not the metro areas

the city populations that I quoted for the incorpo...

2007-12-24T10:28:20.534-08:00

the city populations that I quoted for the incorporated cities and not the metro areas

My calculation is based on the world deaths from a...

2007-12-24T10:25:32.319-08:00

My calculation is based on the world deaths from air pollution (4.5 million per year) as compared to US population levels. I know that the deaths are mostly happening in China and India. So are the deaths that happen outside the united states irrelevant ?

If we are to only discuss past deaths from a source that only happened in the USA then there have been no deaths from nuclear weapons in the USA (they all happened in Japan). If we are to discuss past deaths from nuclear reactors then they primarily happened in the Ukraine.

250,000 some deaths from air pollution each year in Europe.

1.3 million people (expected US air pollution deaths) is equal to the seventh largest city in the USA

If nuclear reactor related events at some point over the next 23 years killed everyone in San Antonio what would be the reaction of the US population ?

How about everyone in the cities of Boston and San Francisco ?

Either case is less than 1.3 million people.

So does it only matter if the deaths are from a more focused source ? A constant stream of increased cancer and heart disease deaths and coal mining deaths that result in the same death toll does not matter ?

> In 23 years (by 2030), air pollution from fossil...

2007-12-24T09:47:30.682-08:00

> In 23 years (by 2030), air pollution from fossil fuels will kill the equivalent of one third of the population of the USA.

Umm your arithmetic is way, way off. 60,000 x 23 is about 1.3 million. Which is about 0.3% af the population of the USA. A third of a percent doesn't sound like much though.

AnonymousIf you even glanced at the documents whic...

2007-12-24T09:20:17.627-08:00

Anonymous

If you even glanced at the documents which were referenced you would see that many research groups (big universities and national labs) and companies in most of the developed countries of the world are working on micro and small reactors and think they are a good idea. There are several policy studies (several from MIT) that examine the issues around small reactors.

In regards to safety.
1) nuclear reactors are completely different from nuclear bombs. Why was there a twenty year gap between the development of the atomic bomb and commercial nuclear fission reactors for energy ? Because they are very different. Why after over sixty years is Iran and other countries still struggling (despite) a lot of resources to make their first atomic bomb ? Because they are complicated and difficult things to make. The N Korea test bomb only produced 1000 tons of TNT explosive equivalent (the recent culmination of a decade of research and effort. N Korea had a nuclear reactor for years). About 20 times more than the largest russian chemical bomb. Getting nanosecond timing is not a simple thing and does not happen by accident, you have to try really hard to design and build it deliberately.

2) Coal and oil and natural gas are still 85%+ of the energy used in the world. Outdoor air pollution kills 3 million people per year and indoor air pollution kills 1.5 million people per year.

12,300 people per day which is more than US Iraq war casualties + the deaths from 9/11 + the US afghanistan war casualties.

The US has about 60,000+ deaths per year from air pollution. 24,000+ deaths per year just from coal pollution.

In 23 years (by 2030), air pollution from fossil fuels will kill the equivalent of one third of the population of the USA. Equal to the population of the four largest states (California, New york, Texas and Florida).

Are you serious about saving lives? Nuclear power will save lives by being the fastest way to displace fossil fuel use and reduce air pollution. It will still take decades but it is 20 times more than wind and solar combined.

Humans have made fossil fuels into a key energy source too. What is your proposal to save those lives ?

So the micro nuclear reactor.Um, who came up with ...

2007-12-24T02:04:46.960-08:00

So the micro nuclear reactor.
Um, who came up with this? Seriously? And who in their right mind could think this is a good idead?

Oh it's fail safe. No it isn't. Nothing humans can make is fail safe. And if you are smart enough to make it fail, it will.

Is toshiba Alqida, because they will love this.

Micro Nuclear Reactor is a nuclear bomb with some modifacations.

I think anyone that sees this as a good idea is a threat.

The micro nuclear reacort will bring death!

On page 79 of this 210 page source there is anothe...

2007-12-19T17:07:26.219-08:00

On page 79 of this 210 page source there is another mention of the Rapid-L as a funded research program. the source is from 2003.

http://www.vleem.org/PDF/Juelich-Fission-2.pdf

I do not know for certain about any mass productio...

2007-12-19T17:01:18.693-08:00

I do not know for certain about any mass production plans or the status of actual hardware. I only know that are a lot of paper studies and research has been done for 6+ years. I think they probably should have a working full size research reactor. That would not take much. It does not make much sense to me to start mass production of the Rapid-L. I think there are better small reactors in the development pipeline that could help make a real difference for global energy. The fuji MSR or the hyperion simplified solid core are ones that I think look pretty good. The Fuji MSR because it leaves no long term waste and the Hyperion because it looks good to help lower the cost of oil from oil shale in Colorado.

The Rapid-L would work and look a lot better when thermoelectronics (see my articles on thermoelectric and the Freedomcar project) are more advanced by 2012-2015 and integrated into the design. Then the 5MWt could be converted to 1-2 MWe.

Various sources confirm the existance of the Rapid...

2007-12-19T16:53:21.869-08:00

Various sources confirm the existance of the Rapid-L research program.

Uranium Information Centre Ltd
A.B.N. 30 005 503 828
GPO Box 1649, Melbourne 3001, Australia
phone (03) 8616 0440
http://www.uic.com.au/nip98.htm

The Rapid-L as presented to the American Nuclear Society
http://www.ans.org/meetings/docs/2007/am2007-prelim.pdf
See page 28 of the 42 page pdf.

Startup Sequence of RAPID-L Fast Reactor for Lunar Base Power System, M.Kambe (CRIEPI-Japan), O. Sato, H. Tsunoda (Mitsubishi Research Institute Japan)

Toshiba may have a prototype in the process of being built which would be ready for 2008 or 2009.

There is no information other than the paper studies. It is not a very complicated as far as nuclear reactors go and is roughly equivalent to a potentially cheaper research reactor. There is no claim that I have seen that the reactor would be mass produced yet. The goal might be mass production but for now it looks like one off research reactors.